31 May 2008

".... Climbin' Up the Topsails, I Lost My Leg ...."


The Dropkick Murphys performing I'm Shipping Up to Boston (lyrics by Woody Guthrie; performance included in The Departed soundtrack)

Celtic punk age-of-sail seaman's folk ballad -- well, punk ballad (?) -- that brings to life the violence of a winter storm at sea. This song, as used in the video above, and, as slammed brilliantly into The Departed soundtrack, is a searingly truthful illustration that urban life in America today can be as violent as any storm you'll encounter. Rock with a vengeance.

Epigram: For hints as to why Woody Guthrie wrote an age-of-sail poem, a great place to start is the section in Joe Klein's Woody Guthrie: A Life on Guthrie's "military service" on troop ship convoys crossing the Atlantic to the European theater of World War II -- a hero with a guitar instead of a gun। Honestly though, the fact that Woody wrote these lyrics is a mystery I'm still trying to unravel.

Billie Dawn contributed to the preparation of this post.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you have copy writer for so good articles? If so please give me contacts, because this really rocks! :)

Paco Malo said...

Thanks for the compliment. I wrote this post and you can contact me most directly at paco_k_999@yahoo.com.

Also, in the left column of this blog is a link to another music blog entitled "Echoes in the Wind" -- whiteray there puts me to shame as a writer.

Anonymous said...

You made some good points there. I did a search on the subject and hardly found any specific details on other websites, but then great to be here, really, thanks.

- Lucas

Paco Malo said...

Thanks for your comment Lucas.

Welcome